By default the Component Builder shows the most common Joyo kanji components (ie, components which are themselves Joyo kanji, or which are used in at least 3 other Joyo kanji). Select an alternative set of components below.

Most common Joyo kanji componentsStandard radicals (and their variants)All components and radicals

The Joy o' Kanji Essays

Welcome to Joy o’ Kanji, which will enable you to discover the joy of kanji! Below you’ll find introductions to detailed essays covering every aspect of each Jōyō kanji. Through loads of sample sentences and images containing the character in question, the essays give you the real-world experience you need so you can master kanji. You can download the essays in PDF form. After reading them, you can play games and use flashcards to work with the vocabulary and sentences from the essay.

If a Joy o' Kanji essay is available for a kanji, you will see this badge next to it in search results.

You can also find all kanji with essays available using the special search keyword jokessay:true, and if you know the Joy o' Kanji ID (the number under the kanji in the display below), you can use the special keyword jok:1009.

Unfortunately that feature is not accessible here. Please contact support if you have any questions.

More info about Joy o' Kanji

Joy o' Kanji is a site for true kanji enthusiasts. The brainchild of professional writer and
Japanophile Eve Kushner, Joy o' Kanji provides detailed essays on the etymology, usage and quirks of the Jōyō
kanji.
Once every week or so Joy o' Kanji produces a new essay featuring a single kanji. Reading such an in-depth essay
is a fantastic way to cement a kanji fully in your mind. The name 'Joy o' Kanji' itself is a clever pun on 'Jōyō kanji'.

This page provides a synopsis of all 375 kanji that have so far been featured by Joy o' Kanji. Each section provides links to a kanji's details page on Kanshudo for more information, as well as the ability to purchase and download a full essay (), study the lesson content (), play entertaining study games (), or view the kanji's details on Kanshudo ().

Create Flashcards for the kanji to study with Kanshudo's spaced repetition flashcard
system

View your current Kanji Mastery level for each kanji, as well as a quick
summary of readings and meanings

Download the kanji with readings and meanings for study offline or in another flashcard program

Kanshudo also features synopses of Joy o' Kanji's 'radical notes', free essays on each
of the 214 standard radicals. To find out more visit our radicals page.
For more information on Joy o' Kanji, visit the Joy o' Kanji website ⇗.

If you want to talk about crossing bridges, emigrating, people ranging in age from 18 to 25, possessing an heirloom for generations, a room that looks out onto the ocean, handing someone paper, extraditing criminals, advancing wages, or bouncing a check, you'll need the indispensable 渡! Find out about all these structures, as well as a deadly form of transit that some Japanese once used!

Through 怒 one can learn about the transformative power of anger - namely, what it does to the body. (Nothing attractive.) Find out, too, about ways of flying into a rage and of shouting (with the help of a bird!). If rage turns you on, there's also information about making people angry. Finally, explore the differences between おこる and いかる, the two yomi of the verb 怒る. Both mean "to get angry," but beyond that, they diverge in unexpected ways.

From edamame to natto to tofu, Japan abounds in bean dishes. Learn about the most popular beans in Japan (unexpectedly named 小豆 and 大豆!), one of which is even popular with foxes! Find out which piece of furniture 豆 used to represent, as well as alternate meanings of 豆. Also discover its role as a radical in kanji such as 豊 (790: plentiful). Finally, learn a Japanese insult that involves tofu!

This kanji takes things to extremes. In sentences with 到, people attain goals, writers complete long novels, and hikers reach mountaintops. You'll hear that marriage proposals and fan letters arrived in a flood. You'll find out about people whose research is beyond reproach. You'll also learn 3 adverbs meaning "at last" and will get a grip (at last!) on how they differ.

This kanji is full of instability. If you fall to the floor, fall ill, fall to a better team, or have your government's cabinet fall, this is the kanji to use. You can also use it if you fell a boxing opponent, wrestle an attacker to the ground, or simply collapse a car seat. When you turn anything on its head, from a Spanish exclamation point (&iexcl;) to a change in the word order of a sentence, this kanji can again help you discuss that state of affairs.

While enjoying gorgeous photos of pottery that only Japanese clay and firing techniques can produce, you'll gain a sense of what pottery means to the Japanese, from its use in daily life to its Zen connections. You'll also learn how to say not only "pottery" and "potter" in Japanese but also "He made me who I am today" and "I'm drunk on music."

This gorgeous photo essay explains the origins of the pagoda; presents historic pagodas in Japan; tells you how to talk about pagodas with 2, 3, or 5 tiers; and explains the "cosmology" of stone pagodas. From the Leaning Tower of Pisa to the literal and figurative Tower of Babel, you'll find out about towers, also discovering what it means to call someone a control tower.

Knowing 搭, you can board Japanese planes confidently. You'll be able to ask what time boarding begins and where. You'll know how to say, "I was told to check in 2 hours before my flight." When you hear "Welcome aboard" in Japanese, you'll understand. Outside of airline contexts, you can use 搭 to say that your PC comes with Android installed and that your mobile phone has a camera.

This kanji has quite a split personality. Growing rice (稲) is a deeply down-to-earth pursuit. But 稲 is also linked to fanciful notions that lightning impregnates rice and that tofu-loving foxes are messengers for the god Inari (稲荷). He is reputed to help with crops, health, sex, and money, so Inari shrines abound, steeped in fox statues and other symbols—all a far cry from farmers’ earthy concerns.

Find out how the structure of 洞 reflects the process of forming a cave. Learn to talk about limestone caves, stalactites, and stalagmites. See how the Japanese have used caves for everything from shelter to religion. Discover how people use 洞 to discuss insightfulness and to describe a particular kind of loss. Enjoy several photos of Japanese caves, as well as kanji signs for those caves.

The Kanshudo kanji usefulness rating shows you how useful a kanji is for you to learn.

has a Kanshudo usefulness of , which means it is among the most useful kanji in Japanese.

is one of the 138 kana characters, denoted with a usefulness rating of K. The kana are the most useful characters in Japanese, and we recommend you thoroughly learn all kana before progressing to kanji.

All kanji in our system are rated from 1-8, where 1 is the most useful.
The 2136 Jōyō kanji have usefulness levels from 1 to 5, and are denoted with badges like this: